9 Ways to Mentally Master the Last 10k of Your Marathon!

Hello fellow runners. I'm your host, Finn Melanson and this is the run to the top podcast. The podcast dedicated to making you a better runner. With each and every episode we are created and produced by the expert team of coaches at runners connect dot net where you can find the best running information on the internet as well as training plans to fit every runner and every budget As any marathon runner knows. The marathon is not just a physical beast, it's also a mental battle against yourself and a lot of races can be lost in the last 10k simply because we aren't mentally prepared. So today we're having coach Andy come on the podcast to share her insights and expertise about the mental side of racing. She's going to get in depth with some amazing tips she's learned throughout her running career and give you nine tips that you can use to stay mentally engaged when that pain starts to set in. I hope you're ready for a great chat today and after listening, I'm sure you will be ready to master the last 10-K.

Mentally and a P. R. Might just be on the horizon. Do you find it difficult to hit the right spots when foam rolling or find it too difficult to control the pressure when you're on the ground. Then you need to check out mobility wall, the foam roller that mounts to your doorway, which makes the pressure much easier to control. I'll tell you more about them later in this episode, but you can check them out now at mobility wall dot com backslash. R. T. T. T. Countless research studies have shown that pillow selection can have a dramatic impact on sleep quality, lagoon specializes in making pillows designed specifically for runners and athletes to help them optimize their sleep and recovery. We'll talk more about the specific benefits later in the episode, but you can learn more at lagoon sleep dot com backslash. T. O. P. And get a 15% discount. Hello everyone coach. Andy here with runners connect on today's coach chat. We are talking about the mental side of racing and more specifically that last 10-K of your marathon. So we'll talk a little bit more in terms of the marathon, but a lot of the concepts that we're talking about when it comes to the mental side of racing towards the end of the race can be applied across the board no matter what race you're doing.

So we'll talk a little bit about just kind of the different mental states that we can be in comparative to, you know, the five K. And up to the marathon. So there's gonna be a slightly different shift and and how we manage each of these different races from a mental side. Um, there can be really great benefits that we get from both, but they're going to be slightly different. So we'll talk a little bit about that. But I wanted to really focus on the marathon because this was a question that was submitted by one of our runners connect athletes. So I will start off by sharing their message, their question and then we'll dive into it. So I've got a couple of articles to share with you guys today, but mostly I'm going to give you a lot of my own personal insights because you know what has worked for me and I'll share a bunch of different tips and different things that you can try that will help you to get past this mental hurdle of that last 10 care of a marathon or really whatever point in a race feels like the hardest to you. I recently had a conversation with another athlete who mentioned that it's more and those, those middle miles towards the end the second, maybe like two thirds of the race that can be a little bit more challenging.

So um that and that's often that's super common a lot of times and a lot of races, a lot of people throw slow down and say a mile would be that third lap. Um, and then they can kick it in for that last lap, but it's always that kind of like 3/4 the way into the race. That can also be pretty challenging. So a lot of the things that we talk about today can also be applied to that time And we'll talk about why it is the case that we kind of fall off a little bit and we'll go through that and find some ways that we can stay focused and stay strong through those, those little little hurdles that we have to go through in a race from a mental side. So to start off, let me go ahead and pull up our question. I'll read that to you guys. So question states, marathons seem to be more of a psychological struggle than physical, especially during those last 6.3 miles. Do you have any favorite techniques to get in the zone and stay there when it gets really tough? I have been trying to do zen meditation but would be interested in other ideas also. So really great question. I think it's something that a lot of people deal with, a lot of people have questions on this.

How can I manage? How can I get through this period and not let that last 10-K really pull me down from a physical standpoint a lot of times in the marathon. We, we are not quite as fatigued in the same way that we are in shorter distance races. A lot of times, we're feeling a lot of the muscle pain, we're starting to feel a little bit of that, but physically we don't necessarily feel like we, um, you know, we're breaking down a lot of that stuff is happening, but sometimes it's our brain that feels like it's holding us back retired, our body says it wants to stop and that's natural because if you push yourself to that point and you're really on your goal. Uh then that's where that the brain is thinking like, hey, I don't know if we can do this, but a lot of times our brain is trying to stop us earlier than we really like physically can. So that's where a lot of these mental tricks actually do come into play. So one thing they mentioned there in that comment was doing some meditation. So meditation is really great for helping us to really dive into our own our minds that are how we feel, our parasympathetic nervous system are how we respond to stress.

It also really helps us to practice. There are some things you can do within meditation like visualization. There's meditation practices that really, that really kind of dive into visualization. So I think from that standpoint, that's a huge one that we can do as part of our race plan as part of our build up is really kind of find ways just start investing time into visualizing are the outcomes that we're hoping to achieve or visualizing the parts of the races that are going to be hard and and finding ways that we can get through those. A lot of this stuff comes a lot more from the practice side of things. So, you know, we're doing, we can't just decide on race day that we're going to start visualizing. It's gotta come from the months before. So, you know, I think this conversation many of you may be more in a little bit of a down period or we've already gotten your big race out of the way and now you're thinking about just kind of taking some time off. Well even if that is you, this is something a really good conversation to have when we're on the off season because you know, as we build back into our season and figure out what races come next, we can start adopting some of these principles and start practicing them in practice as much as we need to practice our fueling in practice as much as we need to practice our pacing and all of that stuff.

We also do want to actually practice how we respond mentally during our workouts in other and tune up races, all of that stuff because that's what's going to help us to actually utilize these on our goal race day. So visualization, you can use it as uh somewhat of a meditation which is gonna really help you get a good recovery, good relaxation, really good for your body, your central nervous system, all of that stuff to have some amount of meditation uh in your practice. And then when you add the visualization to that, you're actually kind of training your body to be able to get in that zone known in the race of like how can I utilize this practice, I'm using in the race. So um you're visualizing not just the good stuff, but also the bad stuff so that you can, you know plan and prepare for what you're going to do if the pain sets in there and you need to keep going through. Um you know, you can tie back to this visualization practice when that happens in a race, which will help to calm your central nervous system a little bit calm. Some of that stress load that's starting to come up because you are feeling that fatigue and then also so whatever tools that you used in your practice to help you overcome, we can call on those will be prepared to use them and they can actually help us to stay focused, stay strong, stay in it, all the things that we want to do when we get tired and our brain is trying to tell us to stop.

So, um I think that's a great thing that you're already doing. So um just maybe add some visual visualization to that. Some other things that I find to be super valuable from my perspective, I've used mantra is a lot, I've done it a lot in practice and then been able to use whatever it was in practice that I was using, that helps me get through to my races and it was huge. It helped me really kind of stay in the zone, helped me to push through and for me, you know, your mantra has to be something that resonates and sticks with you. you can't just use any random phrase, It has to be something that actually feels very, very and tied to what you're, what you're doing and training something that really motivates you, something that's, that's working in practice to help you stay um you know, working through those tough periods and it could change based on whatever phase of life you're in, but really it's important to find what that phrase is that works for you. And so in my last training cycle as I was kind of building back up, getting back into shape, the one thing that worked really well for me was staying, stay in it, stay in it, so, you know, taking some time off and then building back in, I had taken the space away from being uncomfortable and so putting myself back into that uncomfortable place, I had to retrain my, my my brain to be able to stay in it when I was starting to fatigue because it was something I was a little bit out of practice on and so um when I would repeat to myself stay in it, it helped me to just stay in the, in the zone, stay in the workout, push hard and not let myself slow down just because it's getting uncomfortable, so that really helped me to overcome some of that, you know, that early season or just getting back into shape kind of phase, where were we kind of afraid of that uncomfortableness and we have to kind of get over that hurdle of being afraid of it in order for us to to really push our potential and see what we can do and get that pr so um that seemed to help me a lot in my training, that was my phrase that I used and so in a race scenario when I was starting to feel tired or wanted to slow down, I would remind myself to stay in it, stay in it, stay with whoever you can, so a lot of times, that was just also I'd just stay in it to the street corner, stay in it too, um you know, so you can stick with this person.

So it was something that just helped me to stay focused on moving forward as fast as I could despite the pain. Another thing that I used to do alongside of this was ignore my watch a little bit, so whenever I kind of felt like I was getting tired and I wanted to give into the pain, I would stop looking at my pace is I would stop worrying about any of that stuff and really just focus on finishing, focus on doing the best effort that I could do in that moment, focus on running as hard as I could right then and there, focus on finishing as fast as I could without any distractions just doing getting the most out of myself and for a lot of people do not letting your brain tell you or your watch tell you oh you're slowing down or you're speeding up can actually be really valuable and just getting the most out of yourself and we don't have as many inputs. It allows us to really dig deep, it allows us to actually just listen to what our body is saying and just go for it. It also sometimes can trick us into running faster than we think we are. I don't know if any of you guys have had that that time in a race where you feel like you're slowing down and you do check your watch and your you find out, wow I haven't slowed down, I'm still running just as fast but it feels like I'm running slower.

Uh Sometimes when we when we think that we if we don't know, we might end up running a little bit faster because we don't want to slow down, we want to stay we want to stay on our goal, we want to keep going and so you know, sometimes just not not having that input and just running as hard as we can can help us get to the line as fast as possible. I think even if we were sitting on pace and we check our watch, sometimes that holds us back a little bit, we may get a pr but what else is there? Could we have pr more, what else could we have done? Could we have run harder at this point? So I think sometimes just letting yourself separate from the technology a little bit helps us to get the most out of ourselves and be content and excited for the things that we've accomplished, knowing that we put everything into that last five K. Knowing that we ran as hard as we could and we didn't let any distractions skin the way is hugely important. So, um you know, I tend to like to find a point in a race where I'm going to either start doing that, not look at the watch or its when I hit those points in the race where I am physically fatigued and tired and I wanna I wanna slow down.

I'm just struggling through it. That those are also points that I often times tried to ignore the watch because even if I'm if I am slowing down or I'm not having a great day, I like to think that that helps me to get the most out of myself on that day, even on a not great day to just kind of just let let it all go. Just run as hard as I can in the moment and not be frustrated or upset that I'm not having as fast as a day as I would have liked. So those are some things that I like to do in my own racing that and even in my own training that have really helped me to stay focused, motivated, excited to find out how fast I can finish, excited to keep going, excited to keep exploring my potential. All of these things are kind of things that we need to rely on. We have to stay focused mentally as well, so we want to stay excited about what we're doing. So I think that's a really important thing too, is when we're training for something, we have to be able to kind of keep that positive perspective. We have to find the ways that we feel excited about what we're doing and a lot of times that's also listening to your body and trusting the process and enjoying the process.

If we're not enjoying the process by the time we get to the race, uh, you know, it's going to be really difficult to accomplish your goal. We've got to be able to kind of look back on this cycle and be proud of what we've put together and not be kind of always stressed about it because that will lead up to that will really kind of start to cascade on us and on race day we may just end up a pile of stress, which is not the goal, we want to be able to have a free mind, a confident mind and um really focused on, you know, accomplishing what we've set out to accomplish and even if we don't, I think it's important to recognize that if we've trusted the process and we've enjoyed it, um a bad race day won't take, won't hold us back. It's just a bad race day, we get over it, we move past it and then we're able to accomplish that much more in the next race and the next race after that. So good to kind of just always keep a good, positive peace of mind, do what you can do whatever you need to do to get there. If you find yourself falling out of that and you're constantly feeling pessimistic about what you're doing, take a step back, see what you need to do mentally to reset, see which, see if maybe you need like a little bit of a physical break just to get reinvigorated and excited and enjoying the process over again.

Because I think that's a really important factor that a lot of us kind of forget because we're so busy chasing a goal and so focused and fixated on it, that we forget why we're doing something and what makes us excited about it. So that leads me into another point that I think is really important to focus on or have when we go into a race and it's kind of thinking about like what are the reasons that we're doing this race, if it's just gonna be time based, then we are going to let ourselves down, you know about, you know, however many times where that's going to happen and I think sometimes the more that that begins to happen, the worst that it gets. So we have to have motivations and things that are outside of that? What drives you, what things are you excited about when it comes to running? What things to you, what's your cause, what is this thing, this deeper thing within you that makes running that much more important to you? And I think finding something like that, that's an external motivator, whether it's your kids or whether it, it's just something that's looming out there that you just wanna, you just, it just feels so important to you.

That's something I think that can also help us to remind us that um, you know, there's more to this, there's a lot more to our performance than just the times that we're running? Um, it's doing something that is meaningful to somebody else or something else. So keep those types of motivations in mind as well. And then, you know, within a race to also reminding yourself of some of the other goals that we can accomplish when we race, you know, it's not just about the times you could get out there on a day and the weather could be terrible and your goal, race is out the window or your goal time, maybe out the window or what are some things that you can accomplish on a day like that, Can you get, can you be mentally tough? Can you prove to yourself that you can do anything through anything? Um, can you, is there something that you can kind of really get excited about in those moments are their goals that you can set that are outside of the times and the paces and all those things. Could it be that you, you wave at all the volunteers, you pet all the puppies? These are types of things that I think could be really valuable to, you know, also staying in in that last 10-K.

I mean, I think this seems like it's probably a little outside the scope of the last 10-K, but reminding you yourself that there's more to it than just those goals is going to help us to just maintain and do whatever we can on the day. Um, that's the huge part here is finding ways to just stay excited and mentally motivated when, um, you know, whatever the circumstances going on. So that's kind of a lot of this stuff that I've utilized in my own training. Um, the visualization is a big one. You know, visualize yourself accomplishing your goal, visualize yourself not accomplishing your goal, visualize all the different ways in scenarios that you could be coming to you and you will, you'll succeed. I will, I guarantee it whether the times be what you're seeing or whether you're just enjoying the sport more, Those are the things that we're really looking for. Um, and I'll share a quick story because my college soccer coach actually I played soccer growing up, he was a psychology teacher and when we won our team won the state championship, my junior year and that year he had us do this visualization projects every day every before every race, we'd lie down on the ground like zombies and we would visualize what that race was going to be like and we hadn't done this in the years before we just started doing this.

And it was kind of a weird step concept at first. So when we talked about the visualization in the beginning, you're probably like, what do I do? How do I actually get in that mindset? Um, it really did help. I was surprised by it and I actually adopted that going into my racing career in college. Um, you know, on the way to a race, I would just kind of like sit back and relax and actually just visualize, I closed my eyes, I would visualize how I wanted that race to play out what I was going to do and all the different things. And it helped so much helped relax me before the race just conserve some nervous energy. So it's really something that's super valuable. And that season when we started doing that visualization, we won the state championship and it was the first time in our school's history that the women's team had won and it was just like so much of it, I just felt like we've all believed what we are going to do is going to happen and I think that visualization really helped us to get to that point. So, um part of the visualization is also allowing yourself to believe that you can accomplish the goal that you're setting out to and really instilling that in yourself.

So I just wanted to share that story because I found it to be super impactful all around for my, all of my athletic endeavors was um adopting something like that, a mindfulness that really kind of reminds you of your strength and the things that you're going after. We all know how important foam rolling is for staying injury free and just plain feeling better for every run, but let's face it sometimes a foam roller just can't hit all the right spots, especially in the neck and shoulder area where a lot of runners are tense and have pain that impacts their form. That's why I was so amazed when I saw the door mounted foam roller from mobility wall. The mobility wall device amounts to your door frame in just a few seconds and it's easy to move up and down the frame in just a few seconds as well. Not only does this get you off the ground and ready to foam roll in just a few seconds, it allows you to easily hit muscles in your neck and shoulders that aren't possible with a traditional foam roller if you suffer from tight shoulders or a stiff neck mobility wall is a game changer. Also, mobility walls free app provides video instruction to show you exactly how to get your neck and shoulders in specific recovery moves for runners.

If you've been wanting to get more consistent with your injury prevention work this year, the mobility wall foam roller will be a game changer. Plus we've got a special offer for you. Just go to mobility wall dot com backslash, R. T. T. T. Or enter R. T. T. T at checkout for 20% off your first order. Once again, that's mobility wall dot com backslash R. T. T. T for 20% off your first order. You've heard us talk on the podcast about the pillows designed specifically for runners by lagoon and the research on how selecting the right pillow for your sleep position, firmness and one that can keep you cool. Can have a dramatic impact on your sleep quality. And while research is awesome, nothing beats real world data being the data nerds we are at runners connect. We wanted to test the lagoon pillows for ourselves using my old pillow. My Apple Watch data showed that I woke up an average of six times each night and spent two hours in deep sleep when I switched to the lagoon pillow matched for me. My average number of times waking up, dropped two per night in my deep sleep increased by 45 minutes.

I've noticed a huge difference in how I feel in the morning, often waking up 30 to 45 minutes before my alarm and not feeling tired And my data isn't an outlier using her device US Olympic trials, marathon qualifier, Caitlin Keen saw her deep restorative sleep increased by 52 minutes when she switched to a Lagoon Pillow. You want to see a dramatic effect. A pillow designed just for you can be head to lagoon sleep dot com backslash T. O. P. Then take their awesome two minutes sleep quiz that matches you with the lagoon pillow that's perfect for you. Plus if you use the code T. O. P. At checkout, you'll also save 15% off your purchase again. That's lagoon sleep dot com backslash T. O. P. With that. Let me go ahead and shift gears just a little bit so we'll go into the articles that have loaded up here. So let me go ahead and get those. I'm gonna share my screen here. So um the first article that we are going to go through is about the nine ways to overcome the negative thoughts in a race. So oftentimes it's in that last 10-K when we feel these negative thoughts start to creep in.

And so there are ways that we just kind of have to counteract that at one time worked with a sports psychologist who basically said, you know the, you have to figure out a way to turn everything positive because even just saying can't or don't even if you said don't stop that still has a negative connotation. And so flipping any of these things on their head to come up with a way to to say them in your brain as in a positive light actually works. So it's sounds crazy. Sounds like don't stop would work just the same but it doesn't, there's actually some some proof that it doesn't work the same way. We have to figure out a way to tell ourselves to keep going. Like so say it says don't stop, say keep going um stuff like that that really is forward focused, positive all those things really have an impact on us overall. So Um so let's read through this, we hear that running is 90% mental and we know that once you let those negative thoughts come into your mind that can quickly send you backwards as your thoughts spiral out of control. So why is there not more out there helping us with the mental mental aspect of running?

We have all been there that moment in a race when you start to believe the plea to slow down and you start to actually believe the I can't do this thoughts before you know what you are questioning why you put yourself through this, then you go even further and start questioning your sanity. Why would anyone pay to do this? What feels like a lifetime later the finish line comes into view and suddenly your second wind arrives, you power past people in that straight away feeling strong crossing the line and feeling that rush of endorphins. That is why we do this, but it's hard not to feel disappointed in yourself. If only I I kept up my pace and didn't have that funk in the middle, who knows how much faster I would have run. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Is there anyone not nodding their heads? So, this is something I think we've all experienced. It kind of ties a little bit more into what we were talking about in that middle 3/4 of the race being the point where a lot of people kind of give up. There was too much for you to be able to be like, let me just power on, I can get there and close enough, but it's also, you know close enough to the finish line that you are in that really tired spots, you are going to feel that fatigue.

It's important to know that you can keep going though. So let's read on, we're gonna go over the different techniques that we use to get through that. So, um first of all runners are in it together. Um So everyone has those thoughts from time to time. Everyone has has those races. Even elite runners and you should find some comfort in that, knowing that when you are struggling if you look to your left and right. The chances are those people are going through the same motions you are recently I interviewed bestselling author and sports psychologist, Dr stan Beecham, who gave us great advice on how to get the most out of your racing, even when things are going wrong, I strongly encourage you to take a listen. It was really interesting interview and you will learn a lot about how successful runners are able to overcome those moments of doubt. You might be wondering, what can we do to make sure we do not let ourselves spiral out of control? How can we give ourselves the best chance of success in a race without changing anything physically like your muscles in your body? Your emotional state has to be trained to deal with that pain too. So, training the body and the mind for pain. So, this is getting yourself suggested and used to the fact that you're going to be in pain and you're going to be able to you're going to have to figure out a way through it.

So, have you ever noticed that it's much more difficult to put yourself in a race or workout after? You have not done it in a while. That is one of the reasons actually, the main reason those rust buster races are usually not great. So, for me, the first race of the season was always my worst race of the season. It was just kind of having to remind myself that it was going to hurt and not letting myself givin. Um I always use the analogy that I had to break down that barrier before, I could really have a super strong race and sometimes it's just getting that rust buster and it's getting that tune up race where you are, you are pushing, you are trying really hard in it, but you're kind of using it as something to help you just get back in the moment, get back to, you know, learning to train your body to push through the pain and and figure out a way to have a strong race. So important to have those really great for your your mind and your body. So, when you are forced to step away from it all, you can see are the good parts of racing, but you forget that in order to achieve the moment where your hands are in the air beaming with pride, you had to go through some real pain to get there, like the old saying goes, anything worth having is worth fighting for, therefore, tip number one is that you need to keep doing it, preserve and trust that you will get stronger, you will get better at handling the pain and each time you raise, you are taking a step forward, getting stronger, even though it may not seem like it at the time.

So thinking about the finish line from here, in that moment of a race where we have to make a decision of whether we are going to push through the pain or given to the voice telling us to slow down, as I mentioned earlier, we often forget why we are doing this. Travis Macy talked about these, why goals in a much more in detail on his podcast episode. Remember that you want to get that, feel good hands in the air, proud moment to finish, think about that moment and how good it is going to feel. It may just be enough to kick you back into gear and make you realize that you are actually not hurting as bad as you thought. So, this is a little bit where that visualization practice comes into play, reminding yourself what that feels like. And I think sometimes when we do it outside of the actual race, we can really get in the fields of what that feels like. And it actually reminds ourselves how we want to feel when we get in the race scenario and that starts to kind of take effect. So, you know, being able to jump right back into how that felt is something that takes some practice, but it can also be really valuable. Um, so, or that you want that in gold, no matter how much it hurts.

If you visualize yourself crossing the finish line, you smile on your face, you're probably going to wave, wake yourself up enough to get through the rough patch, we talked about this more in detail on our post on visualization. So, um feel free. I'll link these articles in the post for you guys if you want to look a little bit more on the actual visualization stuff, you guys can definitely do that. So take the pressure off. That seems to be one of the biggest things that that kind of makes these things, these races super difficult and makes this point. These points in the race really hard, you know, especially if you're just like riding that line of your pr is in sight, but you've only got it by a little bit and it's gonna take a lot of grit, a lot of push a lot of a lot of pain to get to that point. So, you know, coming across the line just seconds faster than your goal is probably one of the most challenging things uh to, you know, it's so much easier to know you've got that buffer, you know, you know, that you you're going into this race ready to pr by a couple of minutes, that's easier than it is to be in a place where, you know, you're gonna be riding that line, you know, that you're gonna be close to that that having to finish and so you want to take that pressure off, but you also want to kind of keep some of that excitement.

So after we go through these mental struggles because we feel like we're going to let someone down, we wonder about what others are going to think or say if we do not have a good race, we wonder what will happen to our self worth if we do not succeed in running, especially in our sharing circle. We need to think about what we need to do too much, remember at the end of the day, is just running and it's just putting one ft in front of the other, does not say anything about who you are and you have more to offer this world than just being a runner. This is one thing that I think everybody struggles with at the point at some point, um, just feeling like you, the goals that you set for yourself are that people you have to achieve them or people will think differently of you. And I think that's also something that social media has created a little bit more of a storm around. Uh and so I think I still think though that it's important to share your big goals and and be proud of them and and not to feel like anybody's pressure outside of that is going to change who you are, what you think about yourself, because I think sometimes being being able to show that vulnerability of like, these are my goals and this is what I'm going for and and and you know, knowing that that doesn't always happen and that everybody has to deal with those perspectives sometimes.

I think it's huge. I think it's super important to recognize that, you know, everybody's still going to be just as excited for you when you get out there and do what you can. Um, and I think it also super impactful. So don't ever feel like you can't share, you can't do what you want to do. Um stay focused on that and be true to yourself. So you will still be you, your family and friends will love you no matter what you mother, whether you finish first last or even if you DNF actually wrote more about this on my personal blog post, Be brave, be strong, be you reminding yourself of this, the race before the race or even during can be a great way to change your mindset to see that there is no need to be nervous. This is just a reward for your hard book work. So, really important to remind yourself of those things that uh, you know, everything that you did all the hard work you put into this is the important part. And even if it doesn't go your way, if you still did it, you still have this great, fantastic season ahead of it. Uh, and even, and you just got to kind of like get past that moment, Get past the race, if it doesn't go as well and remind yourself that you're building from here.

You're still going to continue to get stronger and no one writes to find you. So run something greater than yourself. So I talked about this already a little bit. So we'll kind of skip through this one just a little bit. But this is just the concept of reminding yourself that there's more out there or that there's more that you can do, there's more that you can run for. Um, that doesn't just revolve around kind of your own personal goals that there's, there's something else out there for you. So running as an individual sport. Yes, but that does not mean that there are not other people involved. We each have our own support network filled with friends, family, physical therapist coaches or whoever else yours may include. But those people support you and believe in you. Here's the deal. Sometimes when a rough patch hits in a race, it makes you take your thinking away from I and dedicate a mile or a minute to each member of your support network instead. I think it's a huge thing that you can do. I think it can actually be really valuable. I had a friend one time dedicate one mile to of a marathon to a different person. And so every time she was in that mile, she was thinking about the other person. I think that was such a smart, very cool thing to do. So that's something that helps to motivate you thinking about some of your family and friends go for it.

I think that can be a really fantastic way to honor them and also remind yourself that it's bigger than you. So we'll skip through that one a little bit. You guys can share a little bit more on you guys can read through this a little bit more in depth if you would like this last 12 we've already gone through. So used mantras. This is fairly well known but different for each of us. We all have our own phrases or mantras that help motivate us and which one works for. You will depend on the experiences you've had in your life. For me personally, I love the Rocky balboa movies cheesy. Yes. Old yes, completed completely unrelated to running. Yes, but I love it. I love comparing myself to Rocky thinking that I am the one who has nothing but sheer grit compared to many other runners who have all the resources in the world. My favorite quote is, let me tell you something. You already know the world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are. It will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it you me or nobody is gonna hit. Huh? Hard as hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much you can take and keep moving forward, that's how winning is done Now.

If you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth. But you've got to be willing to take the hits, not pointing fingers saying you aren't you gonna be because of him or her or anybody cowards do that and that ain't you know you're better than that. So this is a really long quote. That would be very hard for you to actually kind of repeat in your brain. But knowing what that quote is and then simplifying it to a small phrase, it helps you to stay focused. Can can kind of still give you that same feel. So it's good to kind of have something that works for you. Um this is a great example for sure. So um here's a secret with this, look around, you think about a favorite quote and find some way of reminding yourself of it using one word or a few words and do not be afraid to change it if one is no longer working for you. So focus on your form. Another great one. Um This is often used by elites towards the end of a race. It's a great way of distracting yourself while giving yourself the best chance of success as retire our form tends to break down, which means we become inefficient, which makes it even more difficult to run faster or even maintain.

So one thing I used to do is when I would feel tired is I would shift my form to my, shift my focus to my form and trying to maintain good mechanics sometimes that just distracts you from the pain a little bit and how much more you have, and so I would do that and really focus on it until I, you know, and then just clip off each mile thereafter, just to kind of break that race down into smaller bits. And that really helped me to kind of keep moving forward. Um and so that also kind of brings up a little bit of another point that I would like to make in that last 10-K of the race, don't think of it as a full 10-K, think about it in smaller chunks that are easier for you to, you know, understand or take, you know, be able to swallow. So maybe that's you just focus on each mile at a time, maybe that's just focused on each one K at a time and just focus on being in the moment, on that each, each one of those and just think one more, one K. One more, one K. One more mile, whatever it is. You can also break that down into time if that works better. Some people thinking about how much time, theoretically they have left to run can be something that helps them to stay moving forward stay strong through those miles, just kind of really fixating on what you have to do right now and not thinking about the whole scope of, I still have 6.2 miles left, so that can be a really great tactic, breaking that up, chunking the race.

All these things are really valuable for getting through those last few miles. Um Another thing that can be really valuable towards the end of a race is to, you know, find ways to focus on people around, you can you can you start reeling somebody and can you you know, what are some things like that, that could be valuable to you. So um the next one, I'm gonna show shows a little bit more of those strategies, but we'll finish going through here just a second. So counting as a distraction. So this is really just taking the concept of how do we distract our brain from the pain. Um And so this is something that you can do. Uh So just like focusing on your form as a distraction. Another tactic is to count Paula Radcliffe used to count during the tough patches of our workout record setting Marathons. She chose to count to 300. She knew that would be about a mile for her for most of us, 300 is not going to be enough to reach a mile, but the technique works the same. So that's a really cool technique that you can use. Not something I've ever done, but definitely something to try if that helps you. So think about how far you've come when we are running up can be hard not to look at how far we have to go instead of how far we have come.

This can be in the sense of the race itself, the training segment or even your entire running career. Everyone has setbacks, Everyone has challenges yet is how we overcome those challenges that make us stronger. So um great way to spin the race and again, put things in a positive light instead of saying, oh, I have six more miles to go, say to yourself, instead, I've done 20 miles already, like, like what I've done, that's amazing. So just kind of reflecting on that and figuring, you know, more of the glass half full perspective than the empty one. So in the last, but not least, of course have fun. Um I try to tell most people like when they're going into a race, like have fun, um most of the time I try to stay away from the good luck because we don't need luck if you've done the training that you trusted the process, you're ready, you're ready to go. So the most important factor there going into that race just to have fun because that's what we're here for, that's what we run for is for the enjoyment of it. And so even though, you know, there's times when running isn't fun, there's gonna be when you're heading in a race, it's not gonna necessarily feel fun, but you know, getting across that finish line, accomplishing something that's where the fun is, so keep going, keep focusing forward and enjoy it.

So that's the one post I wanted to show. So let me go ahead and I'll slip over. This one's gonna have a little bit more, some strategy to running the second half of the race. It's never gonna be easy in the second half, A lot of times in the first half, we get a little bit of that ability to kind of like, just relax and settle in. So this is one perspective that's a little bit different from raising a five K compared to a marathon, the five K. We're going to be kind of pushing from the gun from a mental standpoint, running a five K were kind of engaged pretty heavily mentally from start to finish. It's gonna hurt pretty much from start to finish, and it can really teach us a lot, It can really show us that we've got that ability to keep to, to run run strong and persevere and, you know, push through pain. The marathon, on the other hand, is one that's a long drawn out kind of pain. You're, you're starting from a point and you're gonna be out there for a very long time. So it's requiring a lot more, you're going to have to utilize that mind for a lot longer period of time, the benefits of that or that you have some time where you are theoretically able to relax, get acquainted with your pace and just kind of, you know, you know, enjoy the being the moment, enjoy experience without it being so super painful early on.

So that's the nice part about the marathon. But those are the two different mental things that I like to think about when I'm thinking about the different race distances. And that's also a reason that I like to occasionally have, I like to have a speed block and my within in between marathon cycles. Just because I find that that mental aspect helps me to get reinvigorated for the marathon distance and the pain of that because it requires a different mentality, a different ability to use your brain. And so I think that it's good to practice both just to, you know, know that you can really dig in from either side of the spectrum. So, um let's go through these here. So keep your mind and body relax, look within yourself and focus on you think confident thoughts and repeat mantras yourself. Oftentimes I'll watch a video of fast marathon runners and when I start to hurt, I imagine myself running like them good form, head straight, arms swinging forward and back in slightly powerful strides. Just having the mental energy and imagery of good form helps me maintain my pace when the muscles become increasingly tired with each step.

So that is something that always worked for me always kind of like to see people running before I ran a race for some reason, even if they were running, you know, way faster than I was, it's the ease that they were able to put forward, that made me feel a little bit more um relaxed or just kind of like, I can do that, I can run that, I'm okay, everything's fine. Look how, look at how they're running, look at how, how they're able to keep that relaxed pace and just be confident in that and how good their form looks. And I'd be able to kind of utilize that within my race to kind of let me dig into that. Let me let me try to make sure I'm mimicking what they're doing. So uh if the pace starts to slip, throw in a surge, that's a really great one. Towards the end of a race, you are going to be tired, you're going to be kind of going in and out of focus on what you're doing and a great way to reinvigorate. That is to throw in like a surge doesn't have to be anything long, it could be as short of as I can Stride, it could be 20 seconds in length and that's perfectly fine. It's really just kind of giving that little boost of pace so that when you relax back down to your normal regular marathon pace that feels more comfortable again, it also helps us to reinvigorate that good form.

So it helps us to pick up, helps us to get re acquainted with good biomechanics and then it helps us to kind of adapt those back because subconsciously over the course of a really long race, we start to change how we move, our form starts to shift because we start to fatigue in different areas, but sometimes just kind of getting back into the groove, picking that back up will help us to get those glutes firing again in the right pattern, get those everything just moving on more efficiently. So this is a good way to kind of just break up those periods where you're tired. It changes your mental stimulus a little bit as well. So it's a lot of good stuff that can come from that. Um we just don't want to do these surges that are going to exhaust us, so, you know, 20 seconds of link can be perfectly fine, nothing crazy, We don't need to be sprinting, It's really just kind of picking it up like you're doing like a light stride. So, um and then we talked about this a little bit, break the remaining distance into bite size and easily digestible pieces after doing lots of hard training runs, I'll break the race up into one of my previous workout sessions, for example, if I had a great two by three mile session, I'll remember how it felt and think to myself, hey, I did this workout before, let's get back on pace and do it again.

Likewise, sometimes a mile can seem like a long distance. So I'll break it down into a time instead thinking I only have 3 to 4 minutes until halfway point, makes a mile, makes halfway point of a mile, makes it seem a lot easier for minutes. Nothing. So, you know, on this concept to one thing that I've utilized in the past two is, is actually like, you know, during a workout like that, that two by three mile workout, I'll actually visualize myself at the end of a race finishing some of these harder workouts in my marathon training block. I would utilize as practice for how I was going to utilize those in a race. So, um, you know, breaking down those workouts, thinking the last mile, that workout was mile 26 putting myself in that space helped me to just kind of, you know, tie those two together. So I knew exactly how I was going to get through in the race scenario compared to the training scenario. So really, really important thing, something that you can really dig into and think about when you get your training and you lay it out, which workouts are those gonna be, which ones are you going to try to use? And sometimes it's in the moment you figure that out in the moment you're having a great day, you're feeling good and those are some great times to just, you know, let's use this.

Let's see if I can and let me break. Let me look at this workout and think about each section of it as me really being in the moment in the race and and that can be really valuable as well. So that pretty much covers everything that I was going to just go through in terms of what, you know, how to, how to stay mentally engaged, how to manage mentally the last 10-K of your marathon. But this can be essentially applied to any race. Um You can still use visualization tactics in a five K. You can still use um some of these different so surges and mantras and all that stuff during a 10-K half marathon, whatever it is whenever you need it. These are all really fantastic tactics that will help us get through the hurdle of the race where we are the most tired, where we are the most fatigue where we want to give in because we're worried about sustaining for another six miles, eight miles, two miles, whatever it is, that these are some things that can help us to just remind ourselves that we can get through it and not to, not to just pull back because we're scared or we don't know, you know, you never know until you try.

So, if, if this is something that you need, you need practice that go for it, try it and races, try and work out what you gotta do. So All right, well that covers everything. So if anyone has any questions about anything that I covered today, feel free to ask those questions in the post itself and I'll make sure I can get those covered as quickly as possible. Um But for now I will see you all again next Wednesday. I hope you guys enjoy the rest of your day and the rest of your week. Looking forward to seeing you all soon. Alright, bye everyone. Alright. Those were your nine ways to mentally master the last 10-K of a marathon. Which one or few resonated most with you. What were your biggest takeaways? What'd you learn? Help us get the conversation started by leaving a question or comment on the facebook and instagram posts for this episode. Thanks for listening to the run to the top podcast. I'm your host, Finma Lanson. As always, our mission here is to help you become a better runner with every episode. Please consider connecting with me on instagram at Wasatch Finn and the rest of our team at runners connect.

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